Texas Teens Win Scholarships in Siemens Competition
Dec. 2011
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(From left) Andrew Xu, Lowell High School, San Francisco, Calif.; and Kevin Tian, Westwood High School, Austin, Texas (Mathematics); Kevin Chang, Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, Denton, Texas |
Two Texas teens, along with a California student, will share $20,000 in scholarships for their entry in the 2011 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology.
Kevin Chang, a student at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, Texas; Kevin Tian, a student at Westwood High School in Austin, Texas; and Andrew Xu, a student at Lowell High School in San Francisco, were named National Finalists for their work in graph theory.
Administered by the College Board, the Siemens Competition is a signature program of the Siemens Foundation, which supports science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The 13th annual awards were presented earlier this month at The George Washington University, host of the 2011 Siemens Competition National Finals.
The team’s project, “Determining the Existence of Graceful Valuations of Various Families of Graphs,” won in the regional competition and was named a finalist in the national competition.
“The students showed remarkable insight into a highly complex area of graph theory,” said competition judge Daniel Freeman, R.H. Big Fellow in the department of mathematics at the University of Texas. “They produced three new algorithms that show a new way of gracefully labeling graphs and, in particular, gave an important contribution toward the Graceful Tree Conjecture, one of the most famous unsolved problems in graph labeling. Current and future mathematicians can use their algorithms to get one step closer to solving this fascinating problem.”
Chang is a three-time Texas ARML Gold Team Member and has qualified multiple times for the USA Mathematical and Junior Mathematical Olympiads. He organized a MathStar club for elementary and middle school kids in his community and is president of the math club. He plans to major in math and business, with hopes of pursuing a career in one of those fields.
Tian was a Regional Finalist in the 2010-11 Siemens Competition. An accomplished musician, he is a viola player in his school orchestra and also plays the violin, piano, guitar, ukulele and harmonica. He is vice president of the IB Student Organization, which promotes community service, and enjoys playing basketball. Tian plans to major in economics. The team’s mentor is Edward Early of St. Edward’s University.
Xu is the first student from his school to be named a National Finalist in the Siemens Competition. He is a winner of the Dong Lieu Science Prize and founder and president of ScienceDays, a program that brings hands-on science experiments to elementary schools. Xu enjoys basketball, swimming and playing the piano. He hopes to become a research mathematician.
“The Siemens Competition has a proud history of attracting awe-inspiring research projects from America’s best and brightest, and we are pleased to see that this year is no exception,” said Jeniffer Harper-Taylor, president of the Siemens Foundation. “We can all take heart in the remarkable work being done by this next generation of young innovators as exemplified by Joshua Kubiak, Andrew Xu, Kevin Chang and Kevin Tian.”
The remaining Regional Finalists received $1,000 scholarships. Regional Finalists in the Individual category were:
- Favyen Bastani, Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, Denton, Texas
- Alice Jiang, Greenhill School, Addison, Texas
- Mai-Anh Vu, McNeil High School, Austin, Texas
- Benjamin Wang, Plano West Senior High School, Plano, Texas
Team Regional Finalists were:
- Kevin Chen and Alex Hong, Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, Denton, Texas
- Alexandra Ilic, Westlake High School, Austin, Texas; Lilly Shen, Clements High School, Sugar Land, Texas; and Robert Shen, John Foster Dulles High School, Sugar Land, Texas
- Kevin Nguyen and Punya Chittajallu, Plano East Senior High School, Plano, Texas
- Helen Xiong, Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, Denton, Texas; and Jamie Stone, J. J. Pearce High School, Richardson, Texas
Launched in 1998, the Siemens Competition is the nation’s premier science research competition for high school students. An all-time record of 2,436 students registered to enter the Siemens Competition this year, resulting in an unprecedented 1,541 projects submitted. There were 317 Semifinalists and 96 Regional Finalists, representing 21 states. Entries are judged at the regional level by esteemed scientists at the six leading research universities that host the regional competitions: California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Notre Dame and The University of Texas at Austin.
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